NEW DELHI – Recently, the Nuh village in the Mewat region of Haryana has been in the news for a peculiar reason. It was reported that the residents of the village were gung-ho over the inauguration of a new jail.

Through a press release, the National Confederation of Human Rights Organisations (NCHRO) expressed its anguish over the lot of villagers who burst into celebrations finding that their longstanding demand was fulfilled on this past Monday.

The demand was to have a new jail facility near the area. Police officials claim that this new facility will reduce the pressure on Gurugram’s Bhondsi jail and the Faridabad jail. Incidentally, around 40 per cent of the inmates in the two jails hail from Nuh.

Earlier, the people used to spend money to travel all the way to far away Gurugram or Faridabad to meet their family members in jail. Now that the jail is nearer their houses, they will be able to easily meet them.

The jail complex, inaugurated by state Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar in Nuh on February 15, is said to have a capacity of 1,000 prisoners.

Nearly 30,000 residents of Haryana’s Jamtara Jamalgarh and Nai in Punhana exchanged sweets with each other after the inauguration of a new facility in the district. The NCHRO noted that presently, the Bhondsi jail has 3,000 inmates, around 600 of them from Nuh. The family members have to cover over 60 km to meet the inmates.

One important fact about the news, according to the rights body, is that Muslims, who account for only 14.2 percent of the population of the country, according to a recent census data, constitute 26.4 percent of the total prison population.

This disproportionate ratio of the Muslim inmates in jails is not random, rather it reflects on the Islamophobic environment of the country, which has been intensified in the last few years under the Modi government.

Additionally, Muslims are also more likely to face torture of all kinds in the police custody. The chances of a fair trial are also skimmer since they mostly are not in a position to hire good advocates to defend them. They are more likely to be hanged as well when the cases are high-profile, as a look at the historical cases would testify.

At a time when the Indian populace is in need of hospitals, schools, and other facilities that can improve their lives, the government is handing them new jails and presenting them as a good deed.

Healthcare facilities, education, transportation, electricity, etc, are what should be attended to by the government. Instead, we are being presented with more infrastructures designed to incarcerate people.

The NCHRO committed itself to draw people’s attention to the way the government is absolving itself from its responsibilities of providing people with facilities to better their lot. We would like other organisations and civil societies to speak more emphatically on issues that matter, and not let the government pass by with absolving their responsibilities.